Like a haute couture dress that’s a little loose around the waist, Apple’s The New Look boasts better craft than execution. The 10-episode drama traces the parallel lives and careers of Christian Dior and Coco Chanel in post-war Europe, when fashion was assigned the responsibility of uplifting the French public’s spirits. But before it pits them against each other in a Ryan Murphy-esque feud, the show alternates between being a gritty World War II drama and a working facsimile of Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread.
Ben Mendelsohn delivers a big performance as Dior, a mild-mannered man who is indistinguishable from an angel in the show. He’s unwaveringly kind, supremely gifted, and utterly unwilling to compromise on his principles. Honestly, it’s like The New Look was funded by the House of Dior itself, or, at the very least, supplied with a crate of Sauvage for every crew member. But while Dior is given a surprisingly favourable portrayal, Chanel is painted as some kind of scheming hustler.
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The spectacularly filmed first episode opens in the future, with Dior being questioned by a group of students about his association with the Nazis during the war. He says that after a point, bowing down to the demands of German officers was no longer a choice. It was a matter of survival, and he justified his actions to himself by repeating the mantra, “The fabric, the design, the gown are all innocent.” In any case, all he did was supply the wives of Nazi officers with clothes, that too at the behest of his boss, Lucien Lelong (John Malkovich in a funny wig and an even funnier accent). Chanel (Juliette Binoche), on the other hand, was an active participant in Nazi activities.
The Third Reich’s use of films as a soft power is well known, but the government also maintained close relationships with several high-profile fashion designers. Hugo Boss, for instance, was an active member of the Nazi party, and his clothing company famously designed uniforms for the SS. Chanel wasn’t as complicit, but The New Look devotes an entire episode to the time when she was — get this — recruited as an emissary for the Germans, and tasked with conveying a message to the then Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Winston Churchill.
Chanel’s motivation for doing the Nazis’ bidding is depicted in the show as entirely selfish. As she says in one scene, “I’ve survived one World War, I can survive another.” Dior, however, seems actively repulsed by the moral compromises that he is forced to make by Lelong, who decides to take a wait and watch position on the whole thing. As it turns out, he was right. While Dior was mostly celebrated as a singular talent in post-war France, Chanel saw her reputation crumble when the skeletons in her closet came tumbling out. She fled to Switzerland to escape public scrutiny, and possible persecution.
The first three episodes of The New Look make for gripping historical drama — incidentally, Apple’s own Masters of the Air could be taking place mere miles away. This is also when we’re introduced to Dior’s sister, Catherine (Maisie Williams), a French resistance fighter who is picked up by the Gestapo and sent away to an internment camp. In much of the show’s first half — this is around five episodes, give or take — Dior’s priority is locating her whereabouts and ensuring her safe return, often at the cost of his career.
But then, once the war ends, the world changes, as does the show. The narrative becomes more episodic, the writing more clunky, and the characters more two-dimensional. One episode takes a rather Crown-like approach, as it reimagines a lavish exhibition orchestrated by Lelong at the Louvre, where the country’s best designers presented their finest creations to take the public’s mind off the trauma they’d just experienced. But because there was a shortage of fabric at the time, they dressed miniature mannequins instead of life-size models. This is also the episode that features Marvel-like cameos from high-hitters such as Pierre Balmain and Cristóbal Balenciaga. Funnily enough, they often catch up over coffee and drinks at the local cafe, like the Avengers huddled around a table eating shawarma.
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The New Look is breathtaking to look at, and enthusiastically performed by a talented cast in complete sync with the show’s slightly silly sensibilities. But it’s far too disjointed, which makes it difficult to form an emotional bond with anybody in it. There’s a strong sense that season two will be more in line with what audiences might have expected from season one, but by then, this collection of episodes will be so 2024.
The New Look
Cast – Ben Mendelsohn, Juliette Binoche, John Malkovich, Maisie Williams, Emily Mortimer
Rating – 3/5
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